" I asked. Justin laughed. He's a good guy, upbeat and helpful, but sending me out to ask what's hot and hip in men's clothing is like sending a Bowery wino to Chateau D'Armailhac to ask the Rothschilds if that not quite Hawaiian Red stuff is really cabernet sauvignon. Still, we have news. This is it: Think sailors. Think dressing in the dark. Oh, there are lots of other things, but, basically the Fall '98 collection was about casual to the point of careless and outfits that look real snazzy at the boathouse bar. Shopping and looking Lots of navy blue, lots of slickers, lots of peacoats and denims, tweeds, ivory, fleece jackets, capes. Oh, it does go on. Tommy Hilfiger, Perry Ellis, Halston, Ralph Lauren, about 40 designers in all, all real cool casual, all gunning for a chunk of the $52 billion a year that American men spend on gear. Basically, there are two ways to show off what's new. One is a runway, with models who don't look like they enjoy it very much, walking the walk in designer stuff. The other is the way Bricken does it, with buyers, reporters and riffraff walking around looking at stuff. I prefer the Bricken format, but what I needed was a copy of "Fashions for Dummies.

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" All I could do was pinch the lapels and say things like, "Hmm, quite pinchable.

" "Quite," said the woman next to me, a correspondent for the magazine Marie Claire. She also said what New York designers do this year, the French guys will do next year. "Non, non, vraiment," she said to suggestions that actually it was the French who were on the cutting edge. "It's sportswear with a pop to it," said Bricken. John Barlett's runway show at the Armory, on Lexington Ave., had one guy dressed in brown riding a well-behaved real horse, also brown, on the runway. But it was the Nautica line, from David Chu, that raised my spirits. "There are no set rules, no by-the-book boundaries," Chu said. "It's about the unpredictable . . . track pants with a sport coat, a fleece pullover with tailored trousers. Real clothes worn in the most individual way.

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" That is, in fact, the way I dress. Up in the dark, grabbing a shirt here, pants there, socks, a jacket. Mix and match and hit the road. Who knew that me and the Nautica models, Franco, Reigh (Ray at the K mart show), Ryan, Scott, Cassio and Quin (two N's at K mart), are dress-alike guys? But there it was, rubber raincoat and twill pants, say, or blue Nautech fleece hooded jacket over yellow nylon Nautex training pants. Don't blink The show only lasted 12 minutes, which I thought was awfully short for the folks who waited an hour or so. But what do I know? My last fashion statement was a sleeveless Hawaiian shirt with a real rabbit fur collar that I bought for $1 in a Hong Kong flea market. I'm wearing it to work tomorrow.